Collaborative Research: ABI Development: A toolbox for analysis of long-term ecological dynamics using the Kepler Workflow System

威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校、新墨西哥大学和加州大学圣巴巴拉分校获得资助，开发一个工具箱，用于自动化分析社区变化的过程。长期数据集将用于展示数据和系统的可访问性和功能，通过实施新的指标，我们将深入了解是什么推动了大陆范围内生态群落的变化。数据将通过DataONE门户网站和LTER网络信息系统使用生态元数据语言进行访问，并在开普勒科学工作流环境中使用R统计例程进行分析。生态群落的物种组成随着时间的变化而变化，以响应环境的变化。对这种变异的分析在生态学中有着悠久的历史，但由于缺乏长期数据，人们一直采用所谓的“地点换时间”的方法来研究不同地点的生态变化。也就是说，一个地方的环境条件被认为与另一个地方的未来条件具有可比性。尽管这种方法允许对一般趋势有一些了解，但它不能提供关于变化速率和模式的很多信息。像LTER和LTREB这样的NSF项目已经对不同的生态群落进行了长期观察，以便对生态群落如何随时间变化进行更现实的测量。随着NEON和GLEON等自动观测平台对长期记录的重大贡献，这一记录将不断增长。随着在线存储库中长期数据集的可用性增加，正在开发新的社区变化分析方法。这个开放访问工具箱将使社区分析更容易获得，从而使各种指数得到更广泛的使用，彻底的测试和改进，以测量和可视化生态动态。现有的工作流程将有助于减少数据准备工作，并促进前所未有的协作潜力。跨生境的社区变化指数的增值数据产品对于教育和外联以及与更大规模的环境卫生、管理和动态有关的更广泛的综合活动特别有价值。通过LTER校园项目，这些数据和对环境变化的理解将影响到大量不同的学童。有关该项目及其软件产品的更多信息，请访问http://lter.limnology.wisc.edu/research/community-analysis-toolbox。

The University of Wisconsin Madison, The University of New Mexico, and the University of California Santa Barbara are awarded grants to develop a toolbox for automating the process of analyzing community change. Long-term data sets will be used to demonstrate data and system accessibility and functionality, and through implementation of new metrics we will gain insights into what drives change in ecological communities on a continental scale. Data will be accessed via the DataONE portal and the LTER Network Information System using the Ecological Metadata Language, and analyzed with R statistical routines within the Kepler Scientific Workflow Environment. The species makeup of ecological communities varies over time in response to changes in the environment. Analysis of this variability has a long history in ecology, yet because of the lack of long term data, ecological change in different localities has been studied in a so-called "place for time" approach. That is, environmental conditions in one locality are considered to be comparable to the future conditions in another place. Although, this approach allows some insight into general trends it does not provide much information about rates and patterns of change. NSF programs like LTER and LTREB have generated long term observations of different ecological communities to allow for more realistic measures of how ecological communities change over time. This record will grow as automated observing platforms like NEON and GLEON contribute significantly to the long-term record. Along with the increasing availability of long-term datasets in on-line repositories, new methods for community change analysis are being developed. This open access toolbox will make community analysis more accessible and in turn expose a variety of indices to wider use, thorough testing, and improvement for measuring and visualizing ecological dynamics. Existing workflows will help reduce effort in data preparation and foster unprecedented potential for collaboration. Value added data products of community change indices across habitats are particularly valuable for education and outreach, and in broader synthetic activities related to environmental health, management, and dynamics at larger scales. Through the LTER Schoolyard program these data and understanding of environmental change will reach a large number and diversity of schoolchildren. For further information about the project and its software products, visit http://lter.limnology.wisc.edu/research/community-analysis-toolbox.